Mortal Engines
dir. Christian Rivers (2018)
That Mortal Engines flopped at the box office reveals the abject state of the big-budget movie industry and its subscribers. This is proper steampunk SF, beautifully filmed, with emphasis on character and premise rather than name casting or outrageous, formulaic plot progressions.
Worldshaker
by Richard Harland (Allen & Unwin, 2009); audiobook read by Adrian Mulraney (Bolinda, 2012)
A book that calls to mind John Christopher’s ‘Wild Jack’. The theme of social awakening is not new but each generation of reader should learn to question assumptions of privilege. Harland’s steampunk milieu — extrapolated from Victorian class divisions — serves well as backdrop.
The Invisible Library
by Genevieve Cogman (Tor, 2015)
Picture an unfathomably vast library between dimensions and one of its secret agent librarians cable-dropping (okay, not really) for rare tomes in Victorian steampunk London. Cogman’s book reads at times like the debut novel it is, but is well worth persisting with.